Among the 300 artworks and documents on view at the Pompidou Center in Paris through February 25 is, above: Henri Rousseau, a.k.a. le Douanier Rousseau, “The Muse inspiring the poet,” 1909, an homage to poet, critic, and Cubist comrade Guillaume Apollinaire. The exhibition includes separate rooms dedicated to critics and writers and to the War, in which Apollinaire was wounded by shrapnel in the head. (See below.) Oil on canvas, 146.2 x 96.9 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, Bale. Copyright Kunstmuseum Basel, photo Martin P. Buhler. Courtesy Musée Pompidou / Service du Presse.

by Guillaume ApollinaireFrom “Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War (1913-1916)”Copyright 1925 librairie Gallimard and 1955 Club du meilleure livreTranslated by Paul Ben-Itzak

(The initial publication of “Calligrammes” in 1918 opened with this dedication from the author: “To the memory of the oldest of my comrades, René Dalize, dead on the field of honor on May 7, 1917.” Wounded in the head towards the end of the war, Apollinaire succumbed to the Spanish flu on November 9, 1918, 100 years ago today.)

As it was the night before Bastille Day
At around four in the afternoon
I went out in the street to see the acrobats

These people who perform feats on the sidewalks
Are becoming more and more rare in Paris
When I was young we saw many more of them than today
Almost all of them have moved on to the country

I headed down the boulevard Saint-Germain
And on the small square situated between Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Danton’s statue
I found the acrobats….

(After evoking the dilapidated, desultory state of the other performers and their worn accoutrements, Apollinaire gets to the finalé:)

….The music stopped and it was time to cajole the audience
Which little by little tossed onto the carpet the sum of four cents
In lieu of the nickel the old acrobat had set as
the price of the feats

But when it was clear that no one would give another centime
They decided to start the performance
From beneath the organ emerged a tiny acrobat costumed in a pulmonary pink
His fists and ankles wrapped in fur bracelets
He spouted out brief yelps
And greeted us by politely spreading out his forearms
Hands open

A rear leg prepared to genuflect
He thus saluted the four cardinal points
And when he walked on a ball
His thin body became a music so delicate that none of the spectators were left cold

A petite sprite with no humanity
Everyone thought
And this music of forms
Destroyed that of the mechanical organ
Molded to the man with the veiled visage of the ancestors

The tiny saltimbanque
somersaulted
With such harmony
That the organ stopped playing
And the organist hid his face in his hands
Whose fingers looked like those of all descendents of his destiny
Miniscule fetuses which projected from his beard
More Indian war-whoops
Angelic rustling of the trees
Disappearance of the child

The acrobats hoisted the large barbells with the tips of their arms
They juggled the weights

But each spectator searched inside himself for the miraculous child
Century oh century of clouds.